


The Sea You Once Lived Beside and Thought Was Yours

by Cinaed



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Baratie Arc, Gen, M/M, POV Male Character, Selkies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:17:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3668871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinaed/pseuds/Cinaed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a long time there is only the sea. </p><p>(Or the one where Gin and Sanji are selkies, and yet most of canon still happens anyway. Spoilers up to the Baratie arc.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sea You Once Lived Beside and Thought Was Yours

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from "[Our Valley](http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/our-valley)" by Philip Levine. The first chapter title comes from "[Sea-Fever](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/242552)" by John Masefield. 
> 
> This fic is the fault of friends who started talking about selkie AUs, and was written for the trope_bingo "animal transformation" square.

For a long time there is only the sea. 

There must have been others like him, before, because Gin knows concepts like sea and land and names, both his own and that of his kind. But he has no memory of his kin. It seems as though he's always been alone. The reef is home to other creatures, of course, but they speak in languages he doesn't understand and they flee from his hunger. 

For a long time there is only the sea, and the reef, and the island, and an endless hole in his belly he can never fill, no matter how much he eats. 

Then there is a ship, its sail black against the sky, and men, their strange voices loud and raucous. These must be other things his lost kin taught him. Ship. Sail. Men. Gin settles down at the edge of the beach, ready to slip into the water if the men like the taste of seal. He watches the ship approach, touched by an emotion he cannot name. Alarm. Curiosity. Perhaps a strange mixture of both.

Whatever emotion it is, it's wiped away by surprise as one of the men turns and looks directly at him. Their eyes meet, and Gin's caught by that gaze, convinced that this man knows what he is. The man bares his teeth, but it doesn't seem to be a challenge, or at least it's not one Gin recognizes. When the man speaks, it's a language he knows somehow, distantly familiar like someone spoke it to him a long time ago. "Look at him, boys. That's good luck." 

"Seals are good luck, sir?" someone asks.

The man makes a noise Gin will come to learn is laughter and says, "That one is." He throws something.

When it lands next to Gin, he sees that it's a fish, not long dead. Its scales gleam gold, and he marvels, for he's never seen such a fish before. For a long moment he only stares, wondering what the man means by it. Then he eats. The fish is unexpectedly cold. It slides down his throat and settles in his belly with an odd weight. Panic briefly rises in him, and he thinks, with a fear that feels like an old memory, that he's been poisoned. But nothing else happens, and the man just turns away, making that strange noise again.

Gin slides into the water, but he finds he cannot swim away. He's drawn to the ship. He circles it slowly, aware that the man glances at him from time to time, but there's no more offered fish. Still, the man seemed to recognize him. Perhaps he’s met Gin's kind before. Perhaps, Gin thinks, a little astonished at his own thoughts, the man will tell him, if he asks. But he cannot ask as he is, and so he retreats to the other side of the island and wiggles free of his skin.

He hasn't made the transformation often. He doesn't like the way he feels as a man, most of his senses dulled, his limbs too long and awkward, his body too easily cold. He's shivering by the time he reaches the beach where the ship is. He rubs at his strange, bare arms and wonders at the way the men yell at the sight of him.

That's quickly answered, for after they've brought him aboard, the man who fed him hands him a strange object, a coarse thin thing that looks almost like a brown version of Gin's dark gray skin, and says, "Lost all your clothes?" The man smiles, like they're sharing a joke. 

Clothes. The word stirs another memory, and Gin looks around. That's right. Men don't have fur, or at least not enough to matter. They wear coverings to fight the cold. He burrows gratefully into the blanket. When he speaks, his voice comes out low and rough. "I. Yes. Have you come from far away?"

Instead of answering him, the men ask question after question. Only the man who fed him seems to know what he is. The other men assume he's been shipwrecked, asking him how long he's been here, if there is anyone with him, the name of his ship, and then, belatedly, his name.

He replies vaguely to the first few, and then says, "Gin." His name sounds strange with this tongue. He catches the eye of the man who fed him, hoping he'll have some answers.

The man bares his teeth again. He's bigger than Gin expected him to be, now that they're face to face, thick and powerful-looking like a large bull. Gin's not surprised that he's their leader. "Gin," he repeats. "I'm Captain Krieg." His teeth flash. "Soon to be _Don_ Krieg. I'm gathering together the greatest armada the world has ever seen. We're going to rule the East Blue, and then take the Grand Line."

Gin doesn't understand what Krieg's talking about, but he recognizes the conviction in his voice. "Oh," he says, politely. He wants to ask if Krieg's seen his kind before, but the men press clothes and then food upon him, and he's distracted by these new tastes and smells. Bread is wonderful, even if the softness beneath the thick shell takes some getting used to, and they offer him a drink that burns his throat and warms his belly.

He's in the middle of trying something they call an apple when he looks up and realizes that it's almost dusk. Alarm seizes him. He has no wish to be in this human form at night, when the sun is gone and the cold worsens. He jumps to his feet, ignoring the men's startled looks as he says, "I have to go. Thank you." 

He dives over the railing as they call after him, as strident as gulls. The water is cold, and he hates the way the ocean drags at his arms and legs and the human clothing he’s still wearing. He'll be glad to be himself again, even if he didn't get an answer from Krieg. Maybe the ship will stay another day, and Gin can ask him then.

When he returns to the beach where he left his skin, however, alarm catches hold again. Gin concealed his skin beneath some rocks, out of reach of the tide and out of sight of any animals that might want to use it as a nest or confuse it for food, but as he draws closer, he sees that the sand around the rocks has been disturbed. He drops to his knees, clumsily, moving aside the rocks with trembling hands.

The skin isn't there.

He stares, disbelieving. He moves the rocks again, as though that will make the skin reappear.  He bends low, trying to catch a scent, some clue, but this human nose is weak and useless. He smells only wet sand and salt. A moan escapes him then. He lurches upright and whirls towards the forest. "Give it back!" He's answered only by silence and a startled protest from a distant bird. "Give it back!"

Terror crashes over him like a wave. Gin runs, mindless with horror. The knowledge pursues him, nipping at his heels. He's trapped. Trapped in this awkward body that can barely swim. Trapped in this body with its weak hearing and sense of smell. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. The word resounds in each strike of his foot against sand and dirt until his strength gives out and he falls.

When he opens his eyes, it's morning and he's still human. He whines, a low, desperate sound. His eyes burn and blur, and when he wipes at them, his hand comes away strangely wet. He raises his head, though everything in him wants to give up and let whatever creature took his skin find him and end it. He's in the forest, not far from the shore, for he can hear gulls squabbling nearby, and, fainter, the sound of human voices.

Krieg's ship, he thinks. Hope is a sudden tight knot in his belly. Krieg recognized him for what he was. Perhaps he knows something Gin doesn't. Maybe he’s met one of his kind, one who found a way to transform without his skin. Or perhaps Krieg will help Gin look around the island and track down the beast that stole his skin.

He drags himself to his feet, unsteady and aching all over, and staggers in the direction of Krieg's ship.

When he explains in halting sentences that he's lost something important and describes the dark gray skin, most of the men look uncomprehending, though one of two mutter, "Oh, is that the only thing you had to wear all this time?"

Only Krieg understands the significance. One corner of his mouth lowers, and Gin, who has no experience in reading human faces, wonders what he's thinking. "Gray, you said. Almost black?" Krieg asks. Something in his voice makes Gin's stomach sink. He turns. "Petr, tell him what you saw earlier."

"Um, yes, sir," says Petr, whose long nose reminds Gin of a beak. He doesn't meet Gin's eyes as he says, "I was on patrol at the edge of the forest, and saw two wolves fighting. I was going to shoot them, but they were pretty distracted, so I just watched. They had this gray thing, like you described--"

" _Where_?"

Petr jumps at Gin's shout, his eyes widening. He waves a hand towards the forest and adds, "But, uh, I hope you weren't too fond of it. The wolves ripped it in two." 

The noise that escapes Gin's lips comes from his human throat, but it doesn't sound human, a long wordless wail. He closes his eyes, but he can see it, the wolves with their long teeth, not knowing their prize, tearing the skin into pieces. His skin.  _His skin_. He had hope before. Now there’s nothing but grief.

The clothing the men gave him the night before smothers him, and he grabs blindly at the shirt, wanting it off.  An ungentle hand seizes his wrist. When Gin tries to get away, the grip tightens to the point of pain. It shocks him back to himself, at least enough for him to open his eyes. He can't see, blinded by that strange wetness again. He blinks until his vision clears.

Krieg keeps hold of him, his expression grim as he says, "The way I see it, you've got two choices. You can stay on this island and die. I don't think you'll last much longer, the way you are. Or you can join my crew." He smiles then, his eyes bright. "I think you could be useful."

Gin wants to run, to escape the agonized clamoring in his head and the grieving pounding of his heart. His thoughts chase themselves in circles. His terror at living trapped in this body wars with his terror of dying. Despair chokes him.

Krieg’s hand is still tight on his wrist, keeping him still. His smile has shifted, his eyes narrowing as he asks, “Well?”

Gin opens his mouth, not knowing what he’s going to say until he says it. “I-I’ll join you, Captain Krieg.”

“Don Krieg,” Krieg says easily, baring his teeth wide and looking pleased. He lets Gin go, and claps a hand on Gin’s shoulder. He looks around at his men. “I think everyone should get used to that, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Don Krieg!” comes the answer, and after a beat Gin says it too.

 

* * *

 

Gin adjusts, slowly, to this strange human world.

Before, he knew concepts like sail, men, ocean, clothes, names. Now he learns more, things like time and geography, the way to sail a ship rather than just know the name of it, how to fight and to protect and defend Krieg’s swiftly growing armada.

The last one is both difficult and easy all at once. Hard, because he must train himself out of using his teeth first as weapons. The tonfa are strange in his hands until they aren’t, until he’s worked long enough with them that they feel like an extension of his body. He learns how to kill, not for food but for survival, in defense of Krieg. As for the easy part, he would’ve been dead long ago if he was careless about his surroundings. There are many creatures in the sea that like the taste of seal. It proves a simple thing to modify his observational skills to battle. He stands by Don Krieg’s side and points out when one of his ships is flagging, or notes where and how their enemies might try to attack from one side or another.

The world is so much bigger than he knew. He laughs the first time someone tells him that the waters around his reef are only a tiny drop of water compared to all that’s out there. He knows that somewhere in all these vast oceans there must be others of his kind, ones who can help him. Krieg says that he's seen others of his kind, a long time ago, and heard rumors of them throughout the world. Gin keeps that hope locked away in his chest, clutches at it on days when the ocean is so beautiful and inviting that his loss, always there but sometimes distant, surges in him like a storm.

Still, Gin is startled to find himself mostly happy.

The armada is like a pod. He didn’t recognize his own loneliness until he was no longer alone. Now he knows that endless hunger he felt wasn’t hunger at all, but yearning for company. There’s still a distance between himself and the other pirates, but they treat him with respect (another concept he has learned), and he enjoys watching them laugh and talk among themselves.

Satisfaction, when he had his skin, was rooted in small pleasures, like a good hunt or a clever escape he made from passing whales. They’re nothing compared to the happiness that seizes him whenever he earns Krieg’s approval. Gin yearns for it in a way he’s never wanted anything, except the return of his skin. He’s pleased to be useful. Sometimes when he wakes from unsettling dreams in which he is watching the ocean retreat from him until there is only sand and the burning sun and Krieg, his hand heavy on Gin’s shoulder, Gin suspects that he wouldn’t be content if he recovered his skin and immediately returned to his reef. The world is so big and so interesting. He wants to see as much of it as he can.   

The years pass.

Krieg rules the East Blue through strength and cleverness, gathering pirates to him and assembling his armada ship by ship. Not even the Navy can stand against him. Many of the men Gin met that first day become captains, Petr first, and then the others, all united under Krieg’s flag.

And then one day Krieg takes him aside and says, “Fifty is a good number. We’ll set out for the Grand Line in a week, once we’ve gathered our supplies. You’d better be prepared, battle commander,” and everything begins to go wrong.

 

* * *

 

Gin’s stomach rumbles another complaint, and he thinks, too exhausted to be bitter, that it will be the last sound he hears, after the laughter of the diners and the slamming of the restaurant door.  

He tries to gather up the last of his strength. He finds there’s little left, most lost to this past few days: the destruction of the armada, his starvation, his pursuit as decoy, his capture, his treatment at the hands of those navy assholes, and finally, his escape. He thinks he has enough energy to drag himself to and over the railing. His thoughts are slow and sluggish from lack of food, but his mind and heart have always turned towards the sea. He wants to die in the water, even he’s in the wrong body for it, dying a man instead of his true self.

The old longing rises in him, but even that grief is blunted by hunger. He’s coaxing strength into his arms when something clunks down in front of him. He turns his head a little, and sees the plate of food just as the wind sweeps the smell of it into his face.  

A voice says, “Eat.”

Gin spares a second to glance at his savior, catching a quick impression of yellow hair, a dark suit, a cigarette dangling from long fingers. Then Gin drags the plate to him and bolts down the food.

He’s too hungry to taste the fried rice at first, but after a few hastily swallowed mouthfuls, the empty feeling in his belly eases enough that he realizes this is freshly made, not leftovers that this man threw together and tossed his way. Emotion wells up in him, so strong he can barely breathe. He clutches at his spoon and tries to tamp down this riot of feeling, but it’s no use. He can’t even put a name to these feelings, only knows that they make him feel strange and weak and all twisted up inside.

Tears spill down his face. “I’ve never had such delicious food in my life!” he says, before all-too-familiar hunger pangs hit him and he begins to eat again. The words escape between bites of food, tumbling out from that hot knot in his stomach. “I’m so grateful! I thought I was going to die! I thought it was all over for me!”

“It’s damn good, right?” There’s a smile in the man’s voice, and Gin lifts his head from the empty plate to look at him again, intending to thank him properly.

Their eyes meet. Something leaps in Gin, a thrill of recognition, because here at last is one of his own kind.

The cook, who’s more of a boy than a man, stares, his breath escaping him in a startled exhale. Surprise wipes away all expression in his face.

In that split second before the man smiles slowly around his cigarette, Gin realizes that they recognized each other in the same instant. He doesn’t know why the thought that this man treats any stranger with such kindness moves him, but it does. His throat’s too tight for words. But what’s the man doing here? Are there others aboard? Is he alone?  

Before Gin can ask, a cheerful voice shouts from above them, “Lucky! You got some food! You were almost about to die before, too!” and laughs like it’s the funniest joke he’s ever heard. “Hey, cook! Join my crew, will you? Be the cook for my pirate ship!”

The voice belongs to a strange boy in a straw hat, who vaults on to the deck and then perches on the railing, looking so much like a gull as he cranes his neck and studies the cook that Gin almost laughs, so filled with wonder that he thinks he might burst. The boy claims to be a pirate, though he looks so wet behind the ears that he can’t have been sailing more than a few weeks at most. Gin’s suspicions are confirmed by the ridiculous argument between the cook, who offers his name as Sanji and snarls as he says no to the boy’s invitation to join his crew, and the boy, who ridiculously refuses his refusal.

Gin should let them argue and mind his own business. Still, there’s something about the Straw Hat kid that tugs at him. Maybe part of it is how quickly he saw Sanji’s value as a cook. Or maybe it’s because Gin likes how determined he is to have Sanji to sail with him after witnessing his kind nature. Krieg’s method of choosing the strongest men for his ships is the better method, of course, but Gin finds he likes the boy’s way too.

But the Straw Hat’s way won’t get him a crew that will survive the Grand Line, much less one fit for the next Pirate King -- and Gin’s checked, briefly, by the sorrow that wells at him at the loss of all but one of the armada’s ships, all the men that served Krieg so proudly and died so quickly. There’s been so much death already. Gin doesn’t want to let this boy sail off to his doom either. He interrupts.  

“You don’t seem to be a bad guy, so let me give you some advice,” he says, once he’s sure Straw Hat is listening to him. “Give up on going to the Grand Line.”

He tries to argue sense into the boy, but after a minute or two he sees it’s no use. Straw Hat’s stubborn right down to his bones. And he doesn’t have the heart to argue much, not when just thinking about the Grand Line makes him shudder and get a cold, awful feeling in his stomach. He can't even take offense when Sanji calls him a coward, because he's terrified down to his bones of the Grand Line. 

Gin hops on to the small boat he stole from the Navy, giving up on persuading Straw Hat to keep to the East Blue. “I just wanted to warn you.”

“But I’m still going to go to the Grand Line!” Straw Hat says.

Gin laughs ruefully as he looks up at the Baratie and Straw Hat, whose expression is still the bright, determined grin of before. Gin’s warnings have gone in one ear and out the other. He shrugs. “Well, you’re free to do what you want. I don’t have any right to stop you.”

He sees Sanji watching him. His throat goes dry. “And Sanji, thank you so much for the food. You’re my savior.” He can’t help but grin a little as he adds, “That meal really was the best I’ve ever had.” Then he hesitates. All his earlier questions catch in his throat. Something flutters low in his stomach. He feels almost queasy. He licks his lips once, twice, and then asks, the words clumsy and too heavy in his mouth, “So, where’s the rest of you?”

Sanji’s expression goes still.

Gin knows the answer even before Sanji says, “Gone.” He winces and breathes out a harsh, unhappy breath as Straw Hat glances curiously between them. Hope curdles and turns to disappointment in his belly. “Yeah. Yeah. Well.” He tries to smile. “Hey, if I find us a miracle, can I come back and eat sometime?”

He sees the second that understanding registers in Sanji’s face. Then Sanji smiles, his grin so bright it's almost blinding. “Sure. Any time, even if you don’t find that miracle.”  


End file.
